Iowa Poll: Iowans crave Cabela's and Ikea, but population might not support them

Feb. 15, 2013

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• Leading specialty retailer of hunting, fishing, camping and related outdoor merchandise. • Founded in 1961 and is based in Sidney, Neb. • Operates 41 stores across the United States and Canada with plans to open an additional 14 by the end of 2014. Ikea

• The company sells furniture, appliances and home accessories. • Founded in 1943. • Operates 340 stores in 40 countries, including 38 stores in the United States. Macy’s

• Macy’s is a large department store chain known for its annual sponsorship of the Thanksgiving Day Parade. • Founded in 1929, also operates Bloomingdales • The Cincinnati-based company has 800 stores and furniture galleries in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico. Nordstrom• Upscale fashion specialty retailer. • Founded in 1901 and based in Seattle. • Operates 240 stores in 31 states, including full stores and discount Nordstrom Racks. Restoration Hardware• Luxury brand home furnishings retailer. • Founded in 1980 and is based in Corte Madera, Calif. • Operates 73 stores in the United States and Canada. H&M• Swedish retailer of affordable fashion • Founded in 1947. Operates 2,800 worldwide. • The company plans to add 325 stores in 2013, primarily in the United States and China.

About the poll

The Iowa Poll, conducted Feb. 3-6 for The Des Moines Register by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, is based on interviews with 802 Iowans ages 18 or older. Interviewers contacted households with randomly selected landline and cellphone numbers. Responses were adjusted by age and sex to reflect the general population based on recent census data. Questions based on the sample of 802 Iowa adults have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. This means that if this survey were repeated using the same questions and the same methodology, 19 times out of 20, the findings would not vary from the percentages shown here by more than plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Results based on smaller samples of respondents — such as by gender or age — have larger margins of error. Republishing the copyright Iowa Poll without credit to The Des Moines Register is prohibited.

Iowans who say they would be thrilled or at least mildly happy to have ...

Given the chance, Iowans say they would expand the state’s retail landscape with a mega outdoor goods store and a wildly popular Swedish homeware company.

A new Iowa Poll finds that 55 percent of Iowans surveyed say they’d be thrilled, or at least mildly happy, to see a Cabela’s fishing, hunting and camping store open somewhere in the state. Forty-six percent like the idea of the trendy home furnishings store Ikea landing here.

Department stores Macy’s and Nordstrom received 44 percent and 35 percent support, respectively. Iowans polled were less enthusiastic about two other national chains, luxury home furnishings store Restoration Hardware and fashion store H&M.

The poll of 802 Iowans was conducted Feb. 3-6 by Selzer & Co. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Neither Cabela’s nor Ikea officials say they have plans to open in Iowa. The list is probably more pie-in-the-sky than reality, at least until the state’s metro areas can boost their populations, retail experts said.

“It’s all about demographics,” said Richard Hurd, a Des Moines-area developer who helped bring retailers like Lowes, Walgreens, OfficeMax and others to the state. “We don’t have high-end retail because it requires a bigger population. We have a great retail environment, just not enough people.”

The population of the greater Des Moines region, which includes Polk, Dallas, Guthrie, Jasper, Madison, Marshall, Poweshiek and Warren counties, topped 687,000 and is expected to grow 6.8 percent by 2017, according to data by the Greater Des Moines Partnership.

“Des Moines is a very good retailing community,” Hurd said. “We’ve got low unemployment, good average income and we’re educated.”

Iowa, and in particular, Des Moines, has been able to attract a long list of nationally known retailers in recent years like Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Williams-Sonoma, Dillard’s, Pottery Barn and others, most of which have landed in the Des Moines suburbs.

Des Moines homebuilder Todd Drake said adding rooftops and bringing in retail is a chicken-and-egg scenario — if you have decent shopping options, then you’ll draw new residents. And a growing population will bring in more retailers.

“We’ve shown that we can support bigger retailers,” he said. “A lot of them made it through the toughest economy we’ve had.”

It would seem that a store like Cabela’s would be successful in Iowa, enthusiasts said.

Ray Oslin, one of the 5,500 people who live in Shenandoah in southwest Iowa, said he would love to have Cabela’s locate near his home. He can drive an hour and a half to the company’s store in La Vista, Neb., near Omaha.

“I’d be like a kid in a candy store. I’d have to look at everything,” said Oslin, 66, an avid fisherman and hunter. Last year, he made 320 pounds of sausage and 100 pounds of jerky made from deer he bagged. Oslin prefers Cabela’s over other large outdoor equipment stores because Cabela’s caters to his preference of walleye fishing, he said.

Cabela’s has 36 stores in the United States and has a growth plan that so far doesn’t include Iowa, said Wes Remmer, a spokesman for the Sidney, Neb., company.

“We try to build stores in hot spots where we have a concentration of customers and where outdoor sports like hunting and fishing are popular,” Remmer said. The sprawling 250,000-square-foot stores are filled with wildlife displays, archery ranges, fudge shops, waterfalls, aquariums and shooting ranges, along with outdoor sporting equipment, clothing and accessories.

But there is a ray of light. Cabela’s has started building smaller versions of their stores, called Cabela’s Outpost, and look to expand their presence. Remmer would not commit to placing a Cabela’s in Iowa but said the company looks for locations that are visible and on a major highway.

The criteria for landing an Ikea store are a little more stringent. “We need a population of 2 million in a 40- to 60-mile radius or drive time in order to support one store,” said Joseph Roth, Ikea spokesman. The closest store to Iowa is the one across from the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn.

Ikea (which is actually based in the Netherlands, despite its Swedish roots and products) has only 38 U.S. stores and plans to open stores near Kansas City and Miami this year. Des Moines is not on the list. “Sorry. If it’s any consolation, you’re not the only one wanting a store,” Roth said.

“The Apple store at Jordan Creek is the only one in Iowa, and people come from everywhere to go there. Their draw would be from the whole state and more,” said Fuhrman, 24.

Fuhrman also favored the state getting a Macy’s or Nordstrom store.

“What is missing is a bigger department store that has different offerings than Younkers,” she said.

Fuhrman, who grew up in Kansas City, said downtown Des Moines is ripe for retail development. “It would be a nice way to bring more people downtown and give visitors an option.”

Robert Gibbs, of Gibbs Planning Group in Birmingham, Mich., is helping the Downtown Community Alliance develop a revitalization plan for Des Moines’ Walnut Street.

Gibbs believes the key to drawing the big-name retailers is not only to have a growing population, but to also have a strong shopping center developer who could pull in the majors, he said.

“It is hard to land a big department store by itself,” he said. Often the major retailers want cash and other incentives to bring their business in, Gibbs said.

He has said downtown Des Moines has great potential for new retail development. In a recent report, Gibbs said the city center could support clothing, shoe, home furnishing and other stores, including H&M, Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie. “You need strong, experienced developers to do it, and I think they exist,” he said.